


tell me when the fight is done

by statusquo_ergo



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Prison, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: Prompt 89:Post S6. Mike’s back at the firm, planning his wedding with Rachel. He’s also suffering PTSD from prison, juggling work at the legal clinic, and high-powered corporate clients at Specter & Litt. He suffers a breakdown, and disappears. Harvey goes looking for him.





	tell me when the fight is done

The day after the one-month anniversary of Mike’s admission to the New York State Bar Association (which Harvey acknowledged with a private toast over a glass of scotch) and his official return to Pearson Specter Litt (now Specter Litt LLP), Harvey has, for the first time he can recall, an experience that a lesser man might consider “second thoughts.” Not about hiring Mike (because that was always going to happen) but a vague sense of misgiving about the situation, a distant and unidentifiable relative of guilt or regret.

The mistake will take at most twenty minutes of tedious rewriting to remedy, but it’s so basic, so unlike Mike that Harvey needs more than just that; he needs an explanation of what Mike is trying to hide that’s distracting him so badly (because there must be something, there must be). Harvey’s finger hovers over the intercom button for a few seconds before he picks up the telephone receiver; Donna doesn’t need to get it in her head that Mike is hiding anything from anybody. She’d tell Rachel without a second thought, and if Mike is trying to keep this, whatever it is, from her, too, it definitely won’t be Harvey who tips her off.

“Hey Harvey.”

No subversive quip? No flippant quote? Harvey frowns, laying his free arm on his desk and hunching his shoulders.

“You got a minute to come by my office?” he asks in a way that makes it clear he isn’t really asking, but Mike doesn’t tease him about it or laugh or anything.

“Sure thing,” he says instead. Harvey keeps the phone cradled to his ear for a moment after Mike hangs up, drumming his fingers to the rhythm of the dial tone against a printout of the thirty-four page document (thirty-three and a half, really) that Mike emailed him last night and that he’s only just finished reviewing for the second time (to be absolutely sure).

He’s probably overreacting.

Harvey’s finally gotten around to hanging up the receiver when Mike pushes his office door open and leans in as though this is literally going to take a minute.

“What’s up?”

Harvey crooks his fingers and beckons Mike forward; he steps inside without reluctance, without trepidation, closing the door behind him and sticking his hands in his pockets as he walks up to the desk.

“Is everything okay?” he asks carefully, and Harvey taps the printout.

“I think that’s my line,” he returns, and Mike pulls out one of the chairs on the client side of Harvey’s desk to sit without asking permission or for clarification.

They wait in silence as Harvey wishes Mike would realize what this is about before he has to explain.

Mike doesn’t.

Harvey nudges the papers toward him. “The Zirnkilton Post suit.” He folds his hands and sets them down on his laptop. “It’s an asset purchase.”

“I know,” Mike says immediately with an edgy haste, a neediness to please that Harvey could’ve sworn he’d managed to shake off over the years. Trying to be sensitive (really), Harvey unfolds his hands and pushes the papers a little closer.

“Not a stock purchase.”

Slowly, inch by measured inch, Mike lowers his gaze to the document, and Harvey sees the moment he realizes it’s not a trick, the moment it clicks, the moment his furrowed brow smooths and his eyes go blank.

( ~~This Stock Purchase Agreement is entered into—~~ )

It’s the sort of mistake that would get an associate canned, the sort of thing that should’ve pushed him to rush into the office as soon as the front doors opened at seven this morning, hoping he could fix it before Harvey noticed. The sort of mistake a junior partner shouldn’t make even in his sleep.

Mike doesn’t trip over his words in a rush to apologize; Harvey watches for some embarrassed or apologetic expression to appear on his face.

Nothing yet.

Closing his hand around the thirty-four pages (worthless), keeping his eyes trained on the document’s fourteen-point boldface header (garbage), Mike pushes back from Harvey’s desk, his neck hanging low and his back so tensed his scapulae nearly touch as he death marches back out the door and turns down the hall toward his own office, clear on the other side of the floor.

Harvey looks after him until his vision blurs.

When he starts to lose feeling in his arms, he rubs his eyes with numbing fingers and then opens his laptop, jostling it out of sleep mode and clicking on the Documents folder.

Awhile after that, a few minutes or so, he figures he ought to get back to work.

A few minutes more, and he finally does.

Whatever is going on with Mike, whenever he wants to talk… Well. Harvey will be waiting.

He’ll come when he’s ready.

\---

A carefully curated list of people have the number for Harvey’s direct office line. Mike, obviously, and Donna, of course; Louis, as the firm’s other name partner, and Rachel, who got it when Mike went to prison and Harvey needed someone to talk to. Harvey never gives it out to clients, maintaining the professional distance appropriate to a man of his standing, and Jessica has it but promised when she left never to call unless there was an emergency.

Whenever Harvey’s office phone rings, he makes sure to answer.

“Yes?”

“Is this, um, is this Harvey Specter?”

Harvey frowns. The kid’s voice sounds vaguely familiar, but he can’t place him right away.

“Who is this?” he asks (instead of “Who wants to know,” which he would prefer but would set entirely the wrong tone).

“Oliver,” the kid blurts out, “this is Oliver Grady, at, at Eastside Legal Clinic, I work with Mike, you helped us—uh, him, with the Velocity case we were handling last month?”

The twerp who touched all of Harvey’s records? How the hell did he get this number?

Harvey clears his throat and leans back in his chair. “Mister Grady,” he acknowledges. He’d better have a good reason for calling, and it had better be about Mike, or he’s going to be very sorry.

“Mister Specter,” Oliver replies, a little higher-pitched. Harvey hears him take a deep breath, actually hears him do it, as he tries to bring his nerves under control and appears to succeed, more or less. “Uh, I’m sorry to be contacting you on your direct line but Mike gave me your number during the Velocity case— I mean, um, he didn’t, but he called you once on his office phone and I wrote down your number just in, in case of uh, emergency, because things back then were kind of crazy and I didn’t know what—”

“Get to the point,” Harvey interrupts, because as nice as it is that this kid is flustered into gibbering by the very _prospect_ of talking to Harvey, even just on the phone (he’ll deal with Mike’s accidental indiscretion later), he does actually have some goddamn work to do today.

“Right, sorry,” Oliver says. “It’s just that, the thing is, Mike was in here the other day, working on Miss Hurd’s case, she’s our client in this tenant strike that we’re trying to negotiate with the landlord’s company and— Never mind, but, I went to his office to ask him about this police investigation that seemed kind of fishy, you know, because the lead detective’s report said—”

“The _point,_ ” Harvey repeats, suddenly apprehensive and dying for this conversation to end so he can run to the other side of the floor to make sure that Mike is in his office doing something, anything at all that won’t make him profoundly nervous.

“Sorry,” Oliver repeats. “It’s just that Mike seemed really…unfocused, like he couldn’t concentrate, and I mean we’re grateful for Mike’s help around here, he’s—amazing, and he’s so good at his job, but it’s just that he’s a really nice guy and everything and he’s working here because he wants to, not because he has to, but Specter Litt is really important to him too and you’re, you’re like his mentor, right, you know him better than I do, better than we do, anyone here at the Clinic, and it’s not that he pretends he’s perfect or anything but if he had any problems, even if they were about stuff that’s going on here, he’d, he’d go…to you, right? I mean…I think?”

The kid finally stops talking then; to be honest, Harvey tuned out for most of the rambling narrative, but he lit on the important words, “Mike” and “unfocused” and “problems.” The same words, or similar, that Harvey’s spent the week trying not to focus on in conjunction, the same words he’s pretended aren’t relevant because if he doesn’t see them, they aren’t there.

(Bullshit.)

Nodding slowly, he closes his eyes.

“I can see why Mike hasn’t let you into court yet,” he says crassly, but something tells him Oliver won’t take offense (not too much).

Neither of them speaks, and then Harvey clears his throat.

“I’ll talk to Mike,” he says.

“Okay,” Oliver babbles, “okay, thank you. I’ll uh—I’ll… I’m not—”

“Mister Grady,” Harvey cuts him off, and Oliver falls silent. Harvey expects he’s holding his breath, maybe nervously biting his lower lip.

Harvey pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Thank you for calling.”

He’s surprised when Oliver doesn’t immediately fumble for an apology for his brazenness, instead quietly sighing to himself with relief, maybe at getting through the call, maybe that Harvey didn’t hang up on him, maybe that Harvey’s going to fix it, whatever’s wrong.

“Thank you, Mister Specter,” Oliver says.

You can fix it, Mister Specter.

You’re the best, Mister Specter.

Harvey hangs up the phone.

Yeah. And now what?

\---

Harvey doesn’t mind interoffice romances. Really. Personal and professional lives should be kept separate at all times, regardless of the parties involved, and if a couple of associates decide to start fucking, they can go to town for all Harvey cares as long as it doesn’t negatively affect their work.

It’s when the two worlds really start to intersect that there’s a problem.

“Harvey, have you seen Mike?”

Harvey finishes the sentence he’s typing before he looks up at Rachel, wondering when it became acceptable for associates to barge into name partners’ offices without being summoned.

“I assume he’s getting his work done,” he intones, the “like you should be” pretty heavily implied. She doesn’t seem to be paying too much attention.

“I know,” she says, looking over her shoulder as if he’ll conveniently appear, “but the florist just called me back, finally, and we’ve been trying to get in touch with her all week, and I just need to ask him one thing.”

Trying to get in touch with the florist all week? Just how much of a goddamn dog and pony show is Harvey’s apartment going to become for this thing?

Rachel turns back to Harvey desperately, and Harvey’s never been more glad not to be a wedding planner.

“One second,” she promises. “Two, at the most, swear to god. He got home after I went to bed last night and left before I woke up this morning and I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday morning, but, _please,_ ” she points to the cell phone clutched tight in her right hand, “do you know where he is?”

Come to think of it, if Mike isn’t in his office (and Harvey has to assume Rachel already checked), then no, he doesn’t. Both his cases at the Clinic are irrevocably stalled at the moment, so there’s no reason for him to be there, and the Esparza suit Mike’s heading up here is a complicated conflict of interest situation but they’ve got all the information and documentation they need for the time being, so Mike wouldn’t be out talking to the client.

“I’m not his chaperone,” he dismisses, hoping his apprehension comes off as irritation at being interrupted. Fortunately, Rachel is too distracted by her own multitasking to analyze his tone; she huffs a sigh, sagging a little as she turns on her stiletto heel and walks back toward her office, the beginnings of an apology to the florist already on her lips.

Harvey clicks “Save” and closes his laptop, folding his hands together in front of his face and staring at the seam of the wall and the floor beside his office door.

He’s been denying it all week, but there’s no avoiding it any longer: Something is seriously wrong with Mike.

If only he had the slightest notion of what it could be.

He presses the intercom button beside his phone.

“Donna,” he says casually, as though this is a whimsically spontaneous decision, “give my interview with McManus to Louis. I’ve got errands to run.”

“You got it,” she replies immediately. “But if he starts gloating, I’m sending him right back to you.”

“I hear ya,” he says. She won’t need to, he knows. They’ve gotten better at acknowledging each other’s strengths, him and Louis, and dramatically toned down their fights for territory since becoming name partners, and really, it’s not important who gets to reel in the big fish so long as it lands on the deck.

As he fetches his coat from the closet, Harvey wonders where to start his search.

It would be a lot easier if he knew what the problem was, that’s for sure. He should’ve asked when he had the chance.

Too late for that now. If Mike purposefully arrived home late last night and left early this morning, or possibly never went home at all, it’s a good bet he’s not there, and if something’s got him freaked out enough to flee without a word to anyone, he’s probably gone somewhere he has a history of feeling safe.

Okay. That’s something to go on.

As he rides down in the elevator, Harvey considers calling Ray; he likes Mike and would certainly be glad to help Harvey in his impromptu mission, but given that Harvey intends to make up his route as he goes and might end up diverting on a dime for some flash of insight, being chauffeured would only slow him down. He’ll stop by the car club; he doesn’t have anything reserved, but he’s a longtime customer in good standing. They’ll give him something nice.

Now then…

Where to first?

\---

Mike is originally from Queens, if Harvey remembers correctly (which he’s sure he does). He doesn’t know the address of the house where Mike grew up, but that’s fine; Mike wouldn’t have gone there anyway, now that it’s almost certainly got a new family living in it, some mother-father-son-daughter-cat-dog-picket fence blend with no regard for the history of the place, all the wonderful and terrible things that have happened there. The memories buried in the walls and crammed under the floorboards, which have probably been stripped and refinished, painted some offensive shade, hung with tacky paper or coarse carpeting.

Mike won’t be there.

Nevertheless, Harvey heads across the Queensboro Bridge, managing to restrain the Corvette Stingray to just five miles per hour over the speed limit as he casts his mind about for inspiration and forgets to avoid that one pothole in the middle of the center lane even though really now, it’s always been there, he should know better.

Where does Mike go when he needs to calm down? His grandmother was always a source of comfort when she was alive, but he wouldn’t be so morbid as to go to her old nursing home, would he? No, even Mike wouldn’t do something so self-destructive just to dig up some hope of tranquility. But maybe Harvey should check, just to be sure. But—no. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

Harvey drives down Queens Boulevard, concentrating on the car’s smooth ride and the width of the road before him as he utterly ignores the passing scenery, gritty urbanism gradually giving way to spots of greenery in the form of intermittent trees stuck into squares of dirt in the sidewalk, not-quite-but-almost suburbia.

If Mike is doing as poorly as Harvey suspects (fears), he might be, what’s the word Doctor Agard liked to use, he might be “regressing.” He can’t go to his grandmother, and apparently he’s not running to Rachel, but where did Mike look for solace before her?

Obviously. God dammit.

Harvey pulls a very illegal U-turn, speeding toward the turnoff to Brooklyn.

Fucking Trevor.

Half a mile down the road, Harvey stops clenching his teeth, sucking in a terse breath and narrowing his eyes. As far as he knows, Trevor still lives in the city somewhere, maybe even here in the outer boroughs, but he and Mike aren’t in touch anymore (they’d better not be); Trevor isn’t even on the guest list for the wedding. Mike might’ve fled back to Williamsburg, but it probably wasn’t to see that piece of shit. Who knows, though; Mike might’ve sought relief back at their old loft, back at that place he used to live before everything became so heavy, when all they really had to worry about was being caught out for repeated instances massive fraud (ongoing).

Driving across the Pulaski Bridge, Harvey wonders what he expects to find at 2B-15 South Ninth. The building, as he recalls, is a shithole, and if Mike wanted to badly enough, he could almost certainly break in. It’s only about four o’clock now; if the current tenant, or tenants, have even remotely steady jobs, they’ll probably be out, and if not, knowing the neighborhood, they’ll probably be too high to notice him sneaking around. Hell, maybe Mike just knocked on the door and charmed his way in.

Into that filthy old building, that rat- and roach-infested pit that Mike worked so hard to escape. The place he was living when Rachel cheated on him; the place he was living when things with Trevor finally fell apart; the place he was living when he found out his grandmother had died.

If Mike went back there, he wouldn’t have stayed long. Couldn’t have done it.

Harvey keeps driving down the Expressway, mindlessly drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as he wonders where Mike could be.

Turning onto Kent, he pulls over on the side of the road next to a baseball diamond and leans down to touch his forehead to his knuckles.

Does Mike just need a break? Is it really such a simple thing as overworking himself, splitting his time between Specter Litt and the Clinic? It can’t be easy, even with that lightning-quick brain of his; Mike thrives on supporting the people who rely on him, but for god’s sake, he must be working himself to death. Planning the wedding on top of that can’t be much help; Rachel seems to be doing most of the work, but who knows how much Mike is in charge of that Harvey doesn’t know about, not to mention the control he’d like to hold onto that he’s ceding to Rachel because of some fantasy she’s harbored since childhood or whatever, plus the blow his ego must’ve taken when Rachel’s father insisted ( _insisted_ ) on a prenuptial agreement.

Is Harvey doing him a massive disservice by looking for him, intent on dragging him back to a life he just wants to put on pause for a little while?

It would explain why he hasn’t come to Harvey on his own, actually. Mike isn’t afraid to ask for help when he needs it; the trouble is getting him to admit that he needs it in the first place, and having only just got his law license (finally), he’ll be even more eager than usual to prove his worth, not that he needs to. Harvey will never be able to convince him of that, though; not Mike, who needs to be all things to all people at all times.

Except.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Harvey presses his fingertips to his eyes and scowls. It’s so obvious; he couldn’t have thought of this the first time around?

It’s a long drive back to Queens.

\---

Harvey has only been to the church, Mike’s church, once before. It wasn’t a happy visit, when Mike was trying to use it to give Rachel some kind of misguided I’m-going-away present, to do what he thought she wanted, what he thought _he_ wanted; now, holding out only for the merits of any guidance it may have given Mike in the past, any hard times it may have seen him through, it loudly represents all the memories he wanted to make before he went to the lockup, the last damaged thing he saw before federal prison could collect on what it was owed.

Now, in Harvey’s mind if nowhere else, it stands in for Mike’s breaking point, inexorable from whatever the thing was that pushed him over the edge (which Harvey would very much like to set on fire, or throw off of a very high roof). Harvey doesn’t like it as he steps out of the car, he doesn’t like it as he walks up the stone steps or as he pushes open the heavy wooden door, inhaling the musty air that smells of old books he can’t see, melted candles snuffed out who knows how long ago; he doesn’t like it when he spots Father Walker standing at the lamplit pulpit, mumbling and mouthing the words to his next sermon and skimming his eyes across his script. There’s only one other person there, an older guy sitting in the pews with his clasped hands pressed to his mouth, trembling as tears glisten under his lashes.

Harvey sighs.

Father Walker glances up at the noise and tries to lock eyes with him. Harvey isn’t sure if he recognizes him; probably not, but he lays his sermon aside nonetheless and makes to leave the podium to greet him, and Harvey smiles tightly and turns around, walking down the aisle back the way he came.

Pausing in the musty foyer, he looks down at his watch. Seven twenty.

He’ll regroup and try again in the morning.

\---

Traffic slows to a crawl as Harvey drives back across the bridge to Manhattan; at one particularly frustrating lull, he pulls out his cell phone and calls Ray to drive him home from the car club. If he ever gets there.

As he sits with his eye on the point on the horizon, the intersection where the inching crowd is most likely to thin, Harvey wonders if he should wait for Mike to come back of his own accord. How long does he have before Rachel notices that something is off, before she demands that he find Mike and get off his ass to fix it? How long before Donna gets involved, and Louis and Gretchen and Benjamin and all the associates and everyone at the firm who loves Mike, the way that people do? How long before Jessica catches wind of what’s going on and comes back to remind Harvey that even though he technically _can_ handle things without her, even though he’s _allowed,_ it doesn’t mean he _should?_

How long before he has to accept that Mike might be better off working things out on his own?

Harvey drives all the way to the west side in the dimming twilight, hoping, praying, _dying_ for this not to be the end of things, the way it all turns out.

There’s Ray, out in front of the club. Harvey nods to him through the passenger’s side window, pulling around to the brightly lit parking arena and heading inside to fill out the return paperwork.

“Did you have a nice ride, Mister Specter?” the receptionist asks sweetly, and Harvey smirks as he writes down the Stingray’s remaining mileage.

“Always do,” he remarks, crossing the “t” in “Specter” with a flourish and sliding the pages back to her.

Ray doesn’t say anything, holding the door open to the backseat of the Lexus and closing it behind him, leaving Harvey to be consumed by his own thoughts.

No, no; give it a rest, take a break. There’ll be plenty of time for rumination when he gets back to the penthouse. It’ll be dark by then; he’ll turn on the light switch that’s closest to the elevator door, the one that only turns on the lights immediately above the living room area, which will cast sprawling shadows across the rest of the apartment that make it look even bigger than it is, but also more crowded, even cramped. Which is only funny because the apartment is actually pretty empty when it’s just Harvey in it, wandering around with a glass of whiskey the way he does from time to time.

It doesn’t take as long as he expected to get back across town. They’ve arrived at Harvey’s apartment too fast, but he doesn’t dawdle, getting out of the car and patting the roof as he reminds himself that he isn’t giving up. That’s not it at all; he’s just…pausing. Resting, refreshing, coming back better, stronger, faster, smarter.

“Good evening, Mister Specter,” the doorman says. It’s Tom at this hour, the end of his shift, which Harvey only registers because Tom is usually content with a quiet nod or total indifference unless he has a package to deliver or some dry-cleaning that wasn’t brought straight to Harvey’s apartment for whatever reason.

“Evening,” Harvey replies, but Tom is already ignoring him, which is just as well.

The private elevator speeds up to the twenty-fifth floor as Harvey leans wearily against the wall. Just wait until tomorrow. Another day, another shot. It’ll be okay. Mike will come back; they’ll find him.

Unless, of course, they don’t need to.

The elevator door opens and Harvey must be hallucinating, but no, there’s no doubt that Mike is standing between the two armchairs, his shoulders held back and his hands suspended by his waist, a startle-flee posture, his mouth open just slightly and his eyes darting.

Maybe Harvey ought to be frustrated that Mike is _here,_ of all places, when he’s just spent the better part of the afternoon and evening running around the city looking for him, making up the map as he went along and trying to keep himself from going mad with worry or, a couple of times, anger (quite misplaced); there’s no use pretending, though, not when he’s so relieved, so confused, so quietly flattered that Mike would choose to come _here,_ of all places, when he needs to be somewhere that won’t judge him, won’t tell him he’s feeling this wrong or doing that thing he oughtn’t.

His eyes tighten a bit at the corners, but Harvey keeps a mostly stoic posture as he puts one of his hands behind his back and waits.

It takes a minute.

Then Mike raises his hands a few inches, a somewhat placating gesture that makes his shirt pull across his chest.

“I am so sorry,” he says, his voice thin, and Harvey doesn’t bear him the slightest ill will.

“I looked everywhere for you,” he says as he walks over, stopping on the opposite side of the coffee table and putting both hands in his coat pockets. Mike opens his mouth again, then closes it without a word; his hands fall to his sides and he drops to sit in the chair to his right, his back rounded and his head hanging down.

Harvey clicks his tongue, an awkward silence-filler that he regrets immediately, and takes off his coat, holding it to his chest as he moves to sit in the chair beside Mike’s.

“I couldn’t go back to the office,” Mike says, his voice echoing slightly against the floor. “I know I said I could handle everything, and I’d take care of myself, and I am so, sorry, but I just…”

Harvey looks down at the crown of Mike’s head.

When Mike starts over, it releases a flood that’s been pent up for some time.

“I know Rachel thinks I stayed late at the office a couple nights ago, and I did—I did, but I didn’t go home after she’d gone to bed, I… Fuck. I wanted to.” He clasps his hands tight in his lap, his knuckles turning red and fading quickly to white. “I’d been working so hard on all my cases, seven at the firm and two at the Clinic and I’d barely had time to breathe for _weeks;_ I don’t know what was different about that night, what it was that did it but I was leaving, I was walking down the hall and I just, I remembered that evening, I remembered walking out with all my stuff in a cardboard box and those officers putting me in handcuffs and pushing me into the elevator and I remembered Rachel, and I remembered you, and, this… _awful_ feeling, sick to my stomach, and this just coldness, this _tightness,_ in my chest, in my heart, and I…”

( _Flashback,_ Doctor Agard’s most clinical voice whispers in Harvey’s ear.)

“I couldn’t be at home,” Mike goes on. “I know it’s awful but I just couldn’t go back to her, I knew she wouldn’t understand. She thinks I’m over—it, everything, like somehow being back at the firm, being with her, about to get married has fixed everything that was wrong, like I didn’t go through what I did, like I can wish it all away or pretend it didn’t happen and that’ll be enough and god, I love her, I do, but I _know_ she won’t get it, whether I won’t be able to explain it right or she won’t be able to handle it that she can’t fix me, or, or, I don’t know, something else that I just, I couldn’t do it.”

( _Detachment._ )

“I tried going back to the church, back in Queens, for some kind of…grounding or something, I don’t even know, it took me all day but I walked all the way to Queens, and then I got there and I didn’t feel…anything.”

Mike shakes his head and his neck somehow drops even lower as Harvey resists the urge to congratulate himself for thinking to check the church, despite his imperfect timing. Trying to distract himself, he puts his coat over the chair’s armrest, laying it carefully so it won’t crease; Mike doesn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Mike admits, “but even if it doesn’t make me, you know, happy, at least it’s always given me some, some sense that everything’s going to be okay, somehow, at some point, even if it’s not for awhile, but this time it was just a big building with a bunch of people in it that I didn’t want to talk to.”

( _Anhedonia._ )

“I almost asked Father Walker if I could sleep in the church basement or something, but then it was the next morning and I hadn’t slept and I just didn’t care, I wasn’t tired, I didn’t feel _anything._ ” ( _Emotional blunting._ ) “I wandered around all day and then I came back to the city and I thought everything was fine, or I mean not fine like, fine, but fine like… _fine,_ you know?”

Harvey doesn’t know how he understands what that means, that redundant nonsense, but this is Mike, and he does.

“And then I was on fiftieth street,” Mike rambles without waiting for an answer, “and some guy started yelling at a taxi driver or a bicyclist or a tourist or his girlfriend or I don’t even know but it was like everything was on _fire,_ like I was back at Danbury and I was so sure I was about to be shot, I was looking around everywhere for the gunman, or the guy with the knife, or whoever, I was, I was freaking out, I was freaking the fuck out and I had to get home but I couldn’t, and I didn’t know what to do, I just had to get inside somewhere, somewhere safe, somewhere I knew I wouldn’t be looking over my shoulder every second and the next thing I knew I—”

Mike stops himself short (too much too far), jerking his head back up and staring blankly at the wall, his hands, his arms coming up in an aborted gesture to encompass the apartment, the city outside and the walls and the windows keeping it at bay, everything this place is and everything it means.

Harvey looks at the floor and nods.

( _Hyperarousal._ )

_Shut up._

The flood is over now, the river running dry, and Harvey tries to be grateful for all he received, everything Mike was willing to give; he hopes it was helpful, hopes the burden hasn’t been made heavier by coming into the air between them.

He wishes he knew where to go from here.

After a few seconds’ pause, Mike sags against the cushions, his eyes rolling back as he stares up at the ceiling, and maybe all Harvey needs to do for now is to sit beside him, right where he is.

“Shit, Harvey,” Mike says, “I shouldn’t’ve come here.”

Harvey wants to tell Mike that it’s fine, but he isn’t sure Mike would believe him and more to the point, it isn’t really true. It’s fine that Mike is here, of course, fine that he thought he could come here for safety, but so many things are wrong with all that’s going on that “fine” and “okay” and those sorts of words would be disgustingly, offensively out of place.

“You can always come here,” he says instead, and Mike smiles.

“Would you stop being so goddamn nice to me?”

“Nope.”

Laughing quietly and obviously without meaning to, Mike drops his hands onto the cushions between his thighs and closes his eyes.

“I was losing my mind and I broke into your house.”

Harvey shrugs and resettles in his seat. “I’m no legal expert, but I don’t think it counts as breaking in if you have a key.”

It’s both funny and not, layered in ways Harvey didn’t entirely intend and Mike doesn’t much care to think about in depth, but it does a decent enough job of easing the tension in the air. Mike’s head lolls back and forth on the backrest, as if he’s thinking about shaking it but not entirely committed to the idea.

“Harvey,” he murmurs, sounding so weary it makes Harvey think of a death rattle, even though he’s never actually heard one himself. “Harvey, what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Run, Harvey wants to say. Run away with me to a place between life and work, a place in the middle of nowhere under a clear blue sky where we can live in the moment, a place where you can leave behind all these things that are breaking you apart. Run away and find what you’ve been looking for, find a time and a place where you can become what you want to be and not what you think you have to. Be happy, because you deserve it.

“Talk to me,” he says instead, and Mike puts his hand over his eyes.

“I fucked up all my cases,” he declares, and Harvey turns toward him even though he isn’t looking.

“Mike, come on,” he says.

Mike laughs weakly. Yeah, talk to me, as though Harvey doesn’t have the world’s shittiest track record in honest communication.

“So the last ten minutes,” he muses, “they were all in my head, is that what you’re saying?”

It’s okay. Avoidance is all just part of the package.

“Mike,” Harvey says with some difficulty. “Why are you so unhappy?”

( _Haven’t I given you everything?_ )

Mike stares up at the ceiling; there’s a heaviness in the air that makes it hard to breath evenly, or to sit up straight.

When he speaks, his voice is quiet and cold, and Harvey has to lean in to hear it clearly.

“I never thought it would go this far.”

Yeah, well, it did. (Aren’t you glad for it? Aren’t you?)

“Everything I always wanted, I have it. All of it.” He doesn’t smile, exactly; close enough, but without humor, without fondness or affection.

Harvey doesn’t mention his parents, or his grandmother; that’s a different kind of wanting. That’s not what this is about; that would be mean.

“I wanted this life for so long,” Mike says, “I wanted it so bad that when I saw it in front of me, every time it got a little closer to being perfect, I just… I pretended it was. I pretended it was right, that because it fit right then at _that moment,_ there was no way it was ever gonna change. You know; it worked this time, I’ve survived this long, nothing can stop me now. And I told myself I knew better, that it was okay to pretend because I didn’t really believe it, but then at some point…”

At some point.

When did this life stop being a game?

Harvey waits for the silence to stretch on too long, for the font to run dry, but it doesn’t happen; instead Mike shakes his head as though bewildered by his own pretention.

“I think everyone else pretended it was, too.”

Harvey wants to apologize on behalf of all of humanity for letting Mike down so badly.

“Or I was just so good at faking it that no one noticed.”

“No.”

Mike looks over, pulling himself forward to lean in a little farther and looking as though he doesn’t believe the lie he’s just been told.

“People noticed,” Harvey says. “They just didn’t understand.”

I didn’t understand.

_I should have known better._

( _I’m sorry._ )

The fervor and mania have begun to wear away, and the smudges under Mike’s eyes, the greyish pallor of his skin remind Harvey that he hasn’t slept in days. Harvey thinks back to the nearly empty bottle of Advil (360 count) that’s spent the month migrating from the bathroom to his bedside drawer to his bedside table and he really, really should have known better.

_But we’re still trying to figure out the new culture at the firm and—_

Shut up.

Mike shakes his head, just a bit, barely a tremor, and turns away, folding his hands in his lap and staring off into space.

“I just kept thinking,” he says. “The whole time I kept thinking, ‘What’s going to happen when they find out?’” He laughs under his breath, the laugh of a man who knows there’s nothing to laugh about. “‘Are they gonna leave? Are they gonna kick me out?’ I kept thinking, Cahill was wrong to let me out early, Rachel is wrong to still want to marry me, you were wrong to take me back at the firm, everyone’s giving me all these second chances and I don’t…”

That’s right, isn’t it.

He doesn’t understand.

Even after all this time and everything that’s happened, everything they’ve thought and said and done, Mike doesn’t understand.

( _Everyone leaves._ )

Harvey knows.

“Mike,” he says. “For what it’s worth… Mike, I’m not giving you up.”

“You don’t think I _know_ that?”

Harvey flinches as Mike clenches his fists and his breathing becomes heavier, his eyes narrowed, every muscle tensing as he curls in on himself. Where the hell is this coming from?

(Wasn’t I helping?)

“That’s why I came here instead of going to my home, to my fiancée, because you’re here for me, you’re always here for me, because my life is fucking insane but you, Harvey, you’re always here, you’re always around to pick up the pieces when I fuck up, when I get in over my head. My life always has to be in someone else’s control, someone else has to be at the wheel because _I_ can’t be trusted,” Mike slams his palm against his chest and grits his teeth, “because when I’m in charge people have to sacrifice their hopes and dreams to make up for my mistakes and _I can’t be responsible for that._ ”

“Mike, you’re not—”

“Don’t tell me it’s not my fault!” Mike snaps, looking at Harvey with fire in his darkened eyes. “I’m sick of everyone putting their lives on hold to wait for me to stop fucking up when all I’m doing is trying to fix my own goddamn mistakes!”

“Mike!”

“ _What?_ ”

However Harvey was going to respond, whatever he was going to say, he’s suddenly forgotten the words, the rhythm and the tone; things were going so _well,_ Mike was here and safe and they were talking and everything was—well, it wasn’t _good,_ it wasn’t _fine,_ but it was _getting there,_ and then…something something _what?_

Mike only glares, waiting for Harvey’s defense, his explanation, his solution,

(You can fix it, Mister Specter)

and Harvey’s waiting, too, and nothing is going to happen.

Harvey opens his mouth ahead of schedule and then closes it when the words don’t appear by themselves, and Mike tsks and looks away; this isn’t right, this isn’t right at all.

“Thanks,” Mike says, and Harvey thinks it might be sarcastic but he can’t be sure (he would prefer it if it wasn’t), and then Mike stands and walks stiffly toward the door, as though all his muscles have fallen asleep but he has to get where he’s going, god dammit.

He stops with his hand on the doorknob, the way he sometimes does, and looks down at the ground.

“I’m…”

He doesn’t have the words, either.

Harvey stands and takes a step closer.

“Mike.”

Mike shakes his head and opens the door.

“I’ll see you.”

( _Thanks for everything._ )

“Where are you going?” Harvey asks, because he’s not making that mistake again, but Mike’s already gone, the door falling shut behind him.

Harvey looks down the front hall to where the shadows hit the furniture in such a way that it makes the apartment look more crowded, even cramped.

After a minute, he goes to the liquor cabinet and pulls out a bottle of whiskey, the way he sometimes does, pouring a glass to hold in his hand as he stands at the window and looks out at the view.

Tomorrow is another day, another shot.

It’ll be okay.

At midnight, more or less, Harvey puts the full whiskey glass in the kitchen sink and begins to unbutton his shirt as he walks toward the bedroom.

_I never thought it would go this far._

Yeah. Well.

Here we are.

\---

Mike isn’t at the office the next morning.

For five whole hours, Harvey tries to concentrate on his work; there’s so much to be done. So much paperwork to fill out, so many phone calls to make, so much energy to put into keeping up his façade, to keep anyone from asking questions, from realizing there are questions that need asking. He does a pretty decent job of it, too, he’d say.

Then Rachel knocks on his door.

“Harvey, where’s Mike?”

Harvey stops typing but leaves his hands on his keyboard.

“You don’t know?” he asks crisply, and she steps one foot forward, her hands balled into fists and held stiff at her waist, only quivering a little.

“Wh _at?_ ”

“I don’t know,” Harvey replies, looking her right in the eye as she clenches her teeth and tightens her jaw.

To her credit, she takes a shallow breath before she speaks again. (Although Harvey isn’t sure how much good it does.)

“I haven’t seen my fiancé for three days,” she enunciates. “He hasn’t come home, he hasn’t called, he hasn’t—texted; what exactly am I supposed to _do?_ ”

_I knew she wouldn’t understand._

Harvey presses down on his desk and stands to his full height, narrowing his eyes.

“I’ve been very clear,” he says, “ _very_ clear about my position on interoffice relationships at this firm.”

She glares at him, and he doesn’t want to take it personally, doesn’t want to think she’s anything but frustrated, lashing out with nowhere else to turn but for god’s sake, he’s feeling it, too; she’s not the only one who’s hurting for Mike.

She wants to fight him on it, he sees it in her pursed lips, her squinting eyes and her raised shoulders, but she’s a smart girl and she knows better. They stare each other down until she concedes, scowling and stalking out; he should censure her for her brazenness, her insubordination, he should reduce her caseload or dock a bonus or something, but he won’t.

He gets it.

One more hour and he stops pretending that the blank document on his screen is going to write itself, that the papers on his desk are going to get filed on their own, that the missives he needs to send are going to sort themselves out.

“Donna,” he says into the intercom, “I’m unavailable for the rest of the day.”

“Got it,” she says, or he thinks she does but to be honest, he’s already grabbing his coat, not bothering to pretend he’ll be productive at home as he shoves his laptop into his briefcase and leaves all the paperwork sprawled where it is.

Louis tries to catch his attention as he sweeps down the hall; out of the corner of his eye, Harvey sees him withdraw his hand and close his mouth, recoiling just slightly. He understands.

He gets it.

Harvey calls Ray while he waits for the elevator. Ray put himself on standby after their drive this morning, he says, and is already out front; maybe that façade wasn’t so decent after all.

“Any stops?” Ray asks as he holds the back door open.

“Straight home,” Harvey says, buckling his seatbelt.

Tom doesn’t acknowledge his arrival this time, and Harvey takes the elevator without a word.

He doesn’t turn the lights on; the furniture is just starting to cast shadows, and the apartment looks cavernous.

Three more hours pass before the apartment intercom rings.

“Yes?”

“Mister Specter, a Mister Ross is here for you.”

Harvey’s eyes close slowly and he breathes out through his barely parted lips.

_Oh thank god._

“Shall I send him up?”

Oh yeah.

“Yes, thanks.”

Harvey hangs up the receiver and walks to the door, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looking down at the floor. The elevator is quick, he knows it is; Mike will be here soon.

Soon.

_Soon._

Knock, knock, knock.

Hi, Mike.

For once, Mike waits to be invited in; not in so many words, Harvey opens the door and steps back, waving his arm toward the emptiness behind him. He follows Mike to the living room, diverting to the liquor cabinet for a bottle of scotch and a couple of tumblers.

Mike takes his with a nod and lays it on his flat palm, turning it with his free hand as he sits carefully in one of the leather armchairs. Harvey takes a sip of his own drink and sits on the other chair, resting the glass on his knee.

“I’m sorry.”

Harvey shakes his head. It’s not Mike who ought to be saying that.

“I am,” Mike says, putting the scotch down on the table and sitting up straight to look Harvey square in the eye. “I need to say this. I was scared, and tired, and angry, and confused, and I ran, and then I came here without telling you, or, or Rachel, or anyone, and I lashed out at you when you were trying to help me and I ran away, again, and I’m sorry.”

Fondling his glass, Harvey smiles a little.

“You’re a good man, Mike.”

Mike laughs under his breath.

“I’m all kinds of fucked up, Harvey.”

“Yeah, and?”

That seems to derail his prepared speech as Mike parts his lips, then grins and drops his head.

“I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve to know you.”

What a weird thing to say.

“Look,” Mike says, raising his head partway. “I don’t know why I said the things I said the other day, I didn’t mean them, but—”

“Yeah, you did.”

“No I—”

“Yeah,” Harvey interrupts again. “You did. But you know what, Mike?”

Mike raises his eyebrows, and Harvey smirks.

“You’re not the only one who fucked this up.”

“You son of a bitch.”

But he’s smiling now, so Harvey smiles back, and nothing is fixed yet, but when has it ever been, really? Has there ever been a time that everything was okay?

They break things together, and they put them back together, too.

“I don’t think Rachel wants to be around me right now.”

“Her loss.”

It’s too flippant a response, too dismissive; Harvey tells himself it’s just because he doesn’t want to direct this part of the conversation, but Mike seems to appreciate it on its own merit.

They’re broken in so many ways, but their ragged edges fit together, too.

“I mean it,” Mike says. “I tried to talk to her about it one time, being overworked and—everything,” ( _Prison,_ Harvey doesn’t say) “and all she did was remind me that I’d worked hard for everything I had, that I’ve finally got all that I deserve, that I should be happy. And all I could think about was this fantasy she has of this life she wants that she told herself I could give her and how much of a _lie_ that is, how much we’re lying to each other and ourselves when we say that this is working, that we can handle each other at our worst, that we do it because we want to, not just because we’re closing our eyes and waiting for it to go away so we can get back up and move on and pretend it never happened.”

Harvey looks speculatively at his scotch, holding the tumbler in his fingertips and tipping it left and right.

_I want you to know that I forgive you, too._

Don’t tell me how to feel.

“You have worked hard,” he says eventually. “And you do deserve everything you’ve got.”

“Thanks, Harvey.”

“And I hope,” Harvey carries on, “that if it doesn’t make you happy right now, that it will, sooner or later.”

Leaning over, folding his hands in his lap, Mike watches Harvey carefully. Harvey makes sure not to wince as he takes another sip and puts his drink down on the table next to Mike’s.

“I keep coming back to you,” Mike says, as though finally realizing something obvious. “Like it’s the most natural thing in the world, even when I should probably be going somewhere else, I keep coming back to you.”

“What am I, some kind of addiction?” Harvey teases, and Mike nods to himself.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

They’ve been waiting on this conversation a long time.

Harvey averts his gaze a few inches and leans back in his seat.

“What’s another way?”

Mike smirks and holds his shoulders up in a shallow shrug.

“I’m in love with you.”

Yeah.

Saw it coming a mile away. (Keep telling yourself that.)

“Mike—”

“Hang on.”

Harvey pauses, closing his mouth and swallowing the breath he took in to make his reply (whatever that was, partly planned but not all the way) as Mike puts his hand up.

“I don’t think I can take it right now,” he says. “Whatever you’re going to say, I’m not— I wouldn’t say the right thing.”

That’s hardly fair.

Then again, Mike kind of deserves to have something unfair play out in his favor for once.

Mike stands, his arms hanging for a few seconds before he leans down to pick up his scotch and down it in a single pull.

“Sorry,” he says, holding the tumbler close to his chest. “I’m sorry, I just feel like…my head isn’t on straight. Like whatever I say, I’ll end up regretting it.”

Alright. Alright.

Mike stands there, clutching the tumbler close to his chest, and Harvey wonders where he went when he stormed out of here last night. What sort of night he might have had, where he might have wandered and what he might have done.

“Okay,” Mike begins as Harvey makes a decision.

“Stay here tonight.”

It’s incredible that Mike would have imagined Harvey making any other recommendation, but he shakes his head, flustered and preparing to turn Harvey down (none of that now, come on).

“Sofa’s here, bedroom’s that way,” Harvey interrupts, pointing to the living room set with one hand and toward the spare room with the other. “You hungry?”

“Harvey, come on.”

“It’s been a long day,” Harvey counters. “Chinese or Italian?”

Mike raises the empty tumbler to his lips.

“You pick.”

Harvey arches an eyebrow defiantly and Mike grins.

“Indian.”

“Smartass.”

\---

Mike sits indifferently on the sofa for a long time after dinner is over before he lets Harvey usher him into the spare bedroom. He remembers the adjacent bathroom, the spare toothpaste and the small shower, towels in the closet on the top shelf. This button controls the blinds, that one the lights; the alarm clock is simple enough, a fancy shell with generic controls.

“Get up when you’re ready,” Harvey advises; Mike doesn’t argue that he ought to be in early to make up for his days of truancy, even though they both know it’s true.

He doesn’t sleep well, exactly, or long, but he does sleep, so that’s something.

At three thirty-three, Harvey wakes for no reason he can discern; five minutes later, his bedroom door, which is already open, creaks slightly (there’s some WD-40 around here somewhere) as Mike pushes it wider, shuffling across the floor.

Harvey lies perfectly still as Mike creeps closer and sits on the edge of the bed. He makes it about four minutes more before he curls up a little and turns on his side, making sure to drop his free arm close enough to Mike to seem like an invitation (even if Mike thinks he’s still asleep).

In the morning, around six, Harvey wakes to find Mike lying opposite him, maybe a foot away. As Harvey rolls onto his back, Mike opens his eyes; he’s been awake for awhile.

“Sorry,” he murmurs when Harvey glances over at him.

Sorry.

_I’m not giving you up._

Harvey pushes himself up against the headboard, leaning into the pillows at his back, and Mike looks up at him with his big blue doe eyes.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Harvey says. “You’re my guy.”

Mike smiles and ducks his face down into the blankets, and Harvey cradles the back of his head.

“You feeling better?”

Mike’s back expands as he sighs; Harvey lightly scratches the nape of his neck.

“I need to talk to Rachel today.” Mike looks up and blinks a few times. “I don’t think it’s gonna work out.”

Harvey purses his lips. “You know, at some point, I’m going to have to start docking you personal days.”

Mike raises his eyebrows. “Who said anything about taking time off?” he asks. “I’ve got about a million hours of work piled up on my desk, I’ll be spending every night at the office for a week. Two weeks.”

Harvey laughs; Mike’s his guy, alright.

“Just one thing first,” he says then, and Mike angles himself away, just a bit, defensive even though his expression is cautiously optimistic; he’s prepared to smile, but it’s equally poised to be thrilled as it is to be self-deprecating.

This isn’t going to be easy, but that’s okay. The things worth going after rarely are and all that, and Mike is worth all his effort and then some.

Harvey looks down at his lap and thinks about the consequences of his words.

“You’re some kind of addiction,” he says finally. “You know that?”

It takes a second, but then it clicks and Mike grins again as though the last four days haven’t happened, as though everything is within their reach, anything is doable and they’re going to get whatever they want, whether it’s given to them (not likely) or they have to take it (fighting like hell all the way down). Harvey reaches out to cup his face and Mike doesn’t lean into the touch in any obvious way, but the weight of him settles into Harvey’s hand and he strokes him thumb along Mike’s temple.

“You kind of knew I’d say that,” he murmurs. “Didn’t you.”

Turning his face up so that his chin sits in Harvey’s palm, Mike uncomfortably averts his gaze toward the ceiling; Harvey tilts him back down, spying the light flush on his cheekbones before their eyes meet.

“It’s fine, Mike,” he says softly. “No one’s pretending.”

Sighing wistfully, Mike places his hands on the mattress near Harvey’s waist and leans forward. “You promise?”

Harvey raises his other hand to frame Mike’s face, pulling him closer.

“I swear.”

As it ought to be, given the circumstances, Mike is the one to bridge the gap; he presses his lips to Harvey’s and lets Harvey angle him slightly to the right as he pulls them closer still, opening his mouth to slot them together. Electricity sparks up his spine and heat spreads through his chest, and he lifts his arms to wrap around Harvey’s shoulders as he climbs into his lap, careful to avoid becoming too tangled in the sheets.

“Mike,” Harvey breathes after a minute. To most it would sound like an invitation, but Mike pulls back, his eyes hooded and slightly glassy.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, and Harvey chuckles when Mike noses his cheek.

“We have to get going soon.”

If they’d done this years ago, when they were younger and haughtier, less beaten and bruised, Mike would have offered a whiny objection that a managing partner could waltz into the office anytime he wanted, that no one but Harvey would miss that dime-a-dozen associate Mike Ross and if Harvey was gone too, it wouldn’t even matter. Of course, if they’d done this years ago, who knows what sort of lives they’d be leading now, whether they’d be irrevocably estranged (unthinkable) or stronger than ever (wouldn’t it be lovely).

It doesn’t matter, though. In reality, Mike nods solemnly, then surges in for one last brazenly deep kiss (especially so considering neither of them has brushed his teeth yet) before crawling backwards off the bed and walking out of the bedroom, presumably to go put his work shirt back on, maybe grab something for breakfast. Smiling to himself, Harvey runs his hand down over his face and lowers his feet to the floor.

Today’s gonna be one hell of a day.

Okay. Good thing Harvey’s got the best damn junior partner in the business in his corner.

Bring it.

\---

Mike takes the subway to the office, arriving about fifteen minutes after Ray drops Harvey off.

These things are all about appearances.

Harvey spends two hours making clipped phone calls to difficult clients and firing off brusque emails to opposing counsel before he notices Rachel stalking down the hall, her gaze so narrowly focused that she doesn’t seem to see him watching her pause in her tracks, take three steps back the way she came, then spin back toward him and hurry the last few feet to his door only to halt in front of it. Donna looks covertly over her shoulder but doesn’t try to slow her, and Harvey can’t be certain why not; he wonders if she knows about him and Mike, somehow, if Rachel’s accidentally (on purpose) given it away with her stormy assault.

If Donna knows what’s good for her (and she does), she’ll keep her mouth shut (and she will).

Meanwhile, Rachel stands with her hand on the door handle, looking off to the side, and Harvey waits.

He waits until her better judgment wins out and she walks away, grabbing the probably empty file Donna holds out for her to pretend to be busy with. He waits until she’s far enough away that she’s either returned to her office or hidden herself somewhere to cry or stamp her feet or tear the empty file to shreds. He waits until the dust has settled, until everyone who might’ve seen her has dismissed their curiosity or forgotten the incident entirely, and then he waits nine minutes more, just to be sure, before he picks up his office phone and dials Mike’s extension.

“Hey,” Mike answers on the first ring. Harvey leans forward against his desk.

“How’d it go?” he asks, and Mike laughs awkwardly.

“She gets it,” he says. “She’s angry but she gets it. She’ll be okay.”

Harvey hums an acknowledgement. “And you?”

“Oh,” Mike dismisses, “you know.”

“Mike, come on.”

Mike sighs and Harvey hears a noise like his chair leaning back.

“It’s for the best.”

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.”

As if he doesn’t know.

The sound of Mike’s fingers drumming against his desk reverberates down the line; Harvey shifts the receiver to his other hand.

“Hey,” he says, “come by my office around one.”

“Tête-à-tête?” Mike asks sassily. It’s an obvious put-on, but Harvey smiles all the same.

“Lunch break,” he corrects. “You can tell me all about how okay you are.”

“Ah,” Mike hedges, “thanks, Harvey, but seriously, I’m gonna be here overnight finishing this stuff as it is.”

( _Avoidance._ )

Shut. Up.

Harvey tilts the receiver against his ear and purses his lips. “Consider it a personal favor.”

“Harvey—”

“Mike.”

Mike knows better than to refuse outright.

For a moment, Harvey flashes back to Mike’s grandmother’s death, to working Mike to distraction until he broke down and then sending him home under the guise of cooling his head and coming right back the next day. It was the right call back then, back before they knew each other so well and before everything else became so horribly complicated, back when “work harder” was Harvey’s solution to any problem and all he really knew how to do.

Their lives are so different now. It hasn’t even been that long, really, but hey. It is what it is.

“I’ll be there,” Mike says finally.

“Good,” Harvey says.

“Yeah.”

“Hey Mike?”

Mike hums a high note, and Harvey smiles.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Mike murmurs before he clears his throat. “Okay! I’ll see you then.”

It’s something.

It’s a start.

\---

One o’clock comes and goes, and Harvey forces himself to concentrate until quarter past before he closes his laptop and strolls down to Mike’s office and knocks on the door. Mike looks hunted when he raises his head, immediately checking his watch and starting to babble an apology (oh god I’m sorry I’m on such a roll I just lost track—) that Harvey waves off without a second thought (been there); he offers to take Mike to Casa Lever, off Park, and after time pauses for a second, Mike’s eyes and cheeks redden as he tries his damnedest to fight down his sudden impulse to cry for no goddamn reason. Harvey reaches out to grab his hand and pull him from his chair, walking them over to the window and putting his arm around Mike’s shoulders until he has himself back under control.

They stop at the coffee cart on the corner and lean against the platform railing, eating everything bagels and talking shit about the opposition party in the Esparza suit.

“Did I leave anything at your place?” Mike asks casually as they toss their tinfoil wrappers in the trash and walk back to the front door.

“You didn’t bring much to leave,” Harvey replies as they call the elevators to bring them back up to fifty.

Mike hums a quiet agreement and crosses his arms over his chest, not so much leaning against the wall as falling into it.

Harvey looks over at Mike and watches him for six whole floors.

“Would you like to check?”

Mike looks back hesitantly. That’s going to take awhile to shake off; it’s fine. Whatever they’ve gotta do, it’ll be fine.

“Why don’t you cut out at nine, come by and see for yourself,” Harvey says, one of those this-sounds-like-a-request-but-it-isn’t things that usually mean someone’s in a shitload of trouble. Usually.

They disembark the elevators and idle in front of the receptionists’ desk, a few steps off to the side, and Mike smiles shyly until he talks himself into or out of something and it turns into a smirk that Harvey recognizes a lot more easily.

“Should I just start moving my things into Wayne Manor?”

Should he?

Being with Harvey won’t fix all of Mike’s problems, Harvey isn’t so arrogant or short-sighted as to think something like that. Then again, it really doesn’t need to. If Mike decides at some point that he wants to talk to somebody about all his shit, a therapist or something, Harvey will be there to support him, to help him cover the spread if he can’t handle his full workload, if he needs to take a break from saving the whole goddam world to look out for himself for a little while. If that’s not in the cards for him, okay then, Harvey will be there to support him through anything else he wants to do (or needs to but doesn’t).

They’ve always been good together like that.

Harvey shrugs.

“Well, we are a team.”

Mike’s face splits into a relieved smile, his vigorous defenses lowered for one glorious moment and Harvey realizes suddenly just how fragile he is, how strong but how broken, fractured underneath. It’s not just the stress, is it, or the PTSD, but the fact that his response was to tough it out, to bear the burden until he couldn’t anymore and he had to flee, to isolate himself completely from anyone who might’ve wanted to help, might’ve tried to save him from…whatever, to offer their protection, their support. All things considered, he’s probably convinced himself that all the people he so viciously turned away, the people who did try to help, who still are trying have secretly turned their backs on him, given him up for dead (or as good as) and now he’s all alone, his natural state of being.

No. No, no; good and kind and caring Mike should never be made to feel that way, should never be turned away at the door or denied some kind of solace. Harvey won’t allow it, never again.

Mike nods firmly, his fingers twitching at his side as though he’s resisting some impulse to offer a shake, or maybe to take Harvey’s hand, to hug him or hold him or pat him on the back. Harvey remembers the boldness of his kiss this morning, the love and trust in it, and quietly bemoans his inability to return the gesture, the comfort and assurance here, now, when Mike needs it the most.

On the other hand, though.

After everything they’ve been through, every test and trial they’ve endured…

Fuck appearances.

A managing partner can do what he wants.

**Author's Note:**

> 601 Lexington Avenue (the building where Specter Litt is housed) is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week; for these purposes, "opens at seven" refers to the time employees are reasonably expected to arrive at Specter Litt for work, not the time the building is accessible to them.
> 
> Mike asked Trevor to come to his wedding (“Uninvited Guests,” s05e09) but I’m assuming Harvey doesn’t know that, since Trevor refused the invitation and it didn’t come up when he was summoned to testify at Mike’s trial (“Self Defense,” s05e14).
> 
> 2B-15 South Ninth (which is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, two-ish blocks east of the East River) is the address on Mike’s [driver’s license](https://ivorykaleidoscope.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/mikes-license.jpg) (which says “New York, NY” even though it should say “Brooklyn, NY,” and my [research](http://statusquoergo.tumblr.com/post/166090473589/suits-keeps-throwing-timeline-facts-at-me-and-i-am) indicates that Mike was born in 1981, not 1985). It’s not in a notorious drug area, but it is low-income housing, i.e., not the cleanest.
> 
> [Classic Car Club Manhattan](https://classiccarclubmanhattan.com/), where Harvey gets the [Corvette Stingray](https://classiccarclubmanhattan.com/car/1967-chevrolet-corvette-stingray), is at 1 Pier 76, 408 12th Avenue in Manhattan.
> 
> Flashbacks, detachment, anhedonia (the inability to derive pleasure from activities which are normally pleasurable), emotional blunting, autonomic hyperarousal (getting angry, aggressive, crying, etc. for some involuntary or unconscious reason), anxiety, depression, and avoidance are all symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder ([F43.1](http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd10/browse/2016/en#!/F43.1)). (World Health Organization. (1992). The ICD-10 classification of mental and behavioural disorders: Clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines. Geneva: World Health Organization.)
> 
> People with PTSD often become angry or worried about, and have difficulty maintaining, close relationships for the first few weeks or months after the traumatic incident. (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2015). Relationships and PTSD. Retrieved from <https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/family/ptsd-and-relationships.asp>)
> 
> “I want you to know that I forgive you, too.” Lily Specter, “[The Painting](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e12)” (s06e12)
> 
> “I’m not giving you up.” Mike Ross, “[No Way Out](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s03e16)” (s03e16)
> 
> “Mike’s my guy.” Harvey Specter, “[Litt the Hell Up](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s04e06)” (s04e06)
> 
> Just for fun, “[What It Is (Was es ist)](https://allpoetry.com/What-It-Is-\(English-transaltion-of-Was-es-ist\))” by Erich Fried.
> 
> [Casa Lever](http://www.casalever.com/) is an upscale Italian restaurant on 390 Park Avenue at 53rd Street (Specter Litt is at 601 Lexington and 53rd).
> 
> “Does this mean we’re officially a team now?”  
> “I wouldn’t move your things into Wayne Manor just yet.” Mike and Harvey, “[Pilot](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s01e01)” (s01e01)
> 
> Feel free to say hi on [tumblr](https://statusquoergo.tumblr.com)!


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